day 150: I'm better

Today was a new day.

Thank heavens for that, right?

I did crawl out of bed when my alarm went off.

(I've been training for that for a week now. The success has been limited.)

All morning and early afternoon were spent on the couch, laptop on, school books open, planning mode activated. And goodness sakes, did I get stuff done. I was crossing things off my list left and right, coming up with (what I think are) good ideas all over the place.

And all the while, the girls sat at my feet, happily playing with Polly Pockets for hours on end, stopping for lunch, an occasional spat, and an hour of Looney Toons on tv.

And all the while, I was somewhat patiently waiting for the phone to ring, or for my text message chime to go off, knowing that Aaron would be able to Skype today.

That didn't happen.

So at 2:30, I put an end to the work. The kids cleaned up, and we were off to the zoo.

As many times as we've been to our zoo, even just in the past 10 months, you'd think we'd tire of it. Not the case for these four animal lovers.

At about 4:00, I realized that we had hit a huge milestone. A first. I carried my bag, a cute purse. With only my stuff inside. Each girl, on their own, decided to carry their own bag, with their own sunglasses, cameras, water bottles, etc. inside. I love this milestone.

And then it was another first. In my 11 years of living here and almost 11 years of having a zoo membership, I've never realized that I should go into the White River Gardens. Silly me. I was surprised at how much the girls enjoyed it (they had all been in there at different times without me). They found insects, pretty flowers, chipmunks, bunnies, secret paths, birds, weird looking leaves.

It was simple, but simply what I needed.

I'm better now. Really, I am.